Ghosthands

Σωτήρ: the Solar Age (Mecha) - Still Accepting

i started with gundam seed, you can't go wrong with it

@Plank Sinatra

i know your tricks

Σωτήρ: the Solar Age (Mecha) - Still Accepting

James Harrison

Name: James Harrison

Age: 34

Gender: M

???: Y

Skills:
Harrison is a career soldier and an experienced HFV pilot, and is thus a practiced marksman, tactician and melee combatant both inside and outside a mech suit, showing high levels of dexterity and athleticism.

His technical know-how and adaptability have been beyond that of the average grunt since the beginning of his career, making him well-suited to more advanced and/or unconventional hardware. As a result, he has strong experience in the use of beam weaponry, demolitions, and drone warfare. His training in sword techniques transfers well to the use of Beam Sabers in close-range mech combat.

Appearance:
6 feet in height, athletic but not heavily built, caucasian skin tone. Black hair, length within military regulations, fringe pulled back baring forehead; sharp eyebrows; close-trimmed beard. Slate-grey eyes, chiselled features.

Speaks in a firm baritone with the Estuary accent of his native London.

Flight suit: Martian red, stencilled with personalised designs (PMC logo now replaced with OSDT insignia), light armour plates in key areas, utility belt.
On-duty apparel: OSDT fatigues, utility vest, hip-mounted sidearm holster, hobnail boots.
Off-duty apparel: slim jeans, t-shirt or turtleneck, jacket or gilet.

Personality:
Level-headed and professional, James is a man who takes his work seriously and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He is pragmatic and mission-focused, but not ruthless: he sticks to his own moral code. His sense of humour, when he shows it, is of the dry and sardonic variety the Brits are known for. His serious and critical attitude can make him difficult to get along with, but those who earn his respect will find him to be a strong ally and a dependable friend.

In his spare time he enjoys factual reading (mainly on the topics of science, technology and human history), classic film and literature, the sports of fencing and tennis, caffeinated beverages, and the odd video game.

History:
James Harrison was born in London, the son of a military man and a robotics engineer. With his father usually away on tours of duty, his mother gave up her career to raise the boy. Possessed of a sharp mind, the young James did well at school, particularly in the sciences thanks to his mother’s influence, while his father’s saw that he found success on the athletics track.

At 21, after graduating from university with a degree in Applied Physics (his dissertation project was on military beam technology), he followed in his father’s footsteps and enlisted in the British space fleet. His skills and specialist knowledge got him earmarked early on for the fleet’s HFV program, but he would not be assigned to it for another three years.

Harrison was 25 years old and one year into HFV training when the New Copenhagen rebellion began, and his unit was assigned to the UN coalition formed to combat the rogue colonist threat. He cut his mech combat teeth fighting Bradleys and other rebel HFVs out in the colonies.

Less than a year after the end of the war, he received the news that his father had been killed in action defending a UN convoy from a pirate raid. A few months later, his mother was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer, of a form difficult for even modern medicine to combat. Treatment would be expensive, and the military widow’s benefits would barely cover it. Finding that life in the fleet reminded him too strongly of the loss of his father, and wanting to take care of his mother as best he could, he left the British military and signed up with Marineris Security Solutions, a Mars-based private military firm. The generous salary would be more than enough to pay for private medical care for his mother, the work promised opportunities to fight pirates like those that killed his father, and shipping out to the Martian Sphere felt like a fresh start.

Thus began Harrison’s seven-year career as a military contractor (or as some less generous individuals might say, a mercenary). His contracts were many and varied, from escorting convoys to ‘mediating’ disputes between rival corporations; from attacking pirate strongholds head-on to guarding valuable or vulnerable facilities. And it was good work: the pay was good, the assignments were rewarding, and the company took good care of its troops, providing them with high-grade equipment and training.

In the latter years, however, Harrison began to have concerns about the ethics of certain of MSS’ clients and, by association, MSS itself. Some of the assignments his squad were dispatched to perform began to look legally questionable, particularly those that took them out into the asteroid belt to deal with increasingly unsavoury-looking groups. A series of damning news reports concerning other PMCs didn’t exactly alleviate his suspicions.

Six months ago, Harrison’s mother succumbed to her cancer and passed away. No longer needing a corporate salary, and feeling disillusioned with PMC work in general, he soon decided quit the company and return to the military fold. But with the growing stigma against contractors, former or otherwise, the British recruitment staff were leery, and he found himself shunted off to an old, semi-defunct UN taskforce: the OSDT.

He has since been assigned to the Jannah as a marine and reserve HFV pilot.

Mm C44 'Bradley' ('Kyuzo')

Model: Mm C44 ‘Bradley’

Nickname: ‘Kyuzo’

Specialty: Mass Production General Purpose HFV

History: On the 3rd of July in the 105th year of the Solar Age, the autonomous O'Neill cluster of New Copenhagen declared total war upon its neighbours, with its leader, the eccentric Governor Werribee Bradley, announcing his intention to unite the colonies of the Earth Sphere into a single entity. Backed by an existing arms manufacturing industry and wealth gained from a strong relationship with asteroid miners, the colony was able to rapidly produce significant numbers of HFVs for its war effort, and within two months had already occupied three of its closest neighbouring colonies. Of its many HFVs, the most infamous was the Mm C44, a general purpose mech that soon grew to symbolise New Copenhagen's armies. The brainchild of the governor himself, exactly eight hundred and thirteen units were produced by the Vimana Institute, and were his vanguard against those that opposed him, the relatively high performance of the machines superior to much of what the colonial militias could deploy. However, it would be the intervention of an UN coalition in the fourth month of the war that ended their advance, with the Earth-built machines managing to be achieve technological parity, or even superiority, with the C44s. Six hundred and ninety-two of the ‘Bradley’s (a moniker given to them by coalition forces) would be destroyed, and by Christmas that year, the UN had successfully expelled New Copenhagen's forces from its occupied colonies, bringing an end to Bradley's ambitions (although he would escape arrest). The surviving C44s would find their way either into the hands of UN member states or amongst mercenaries and pirates, and are still a distinctive sight throughout the space routes.

This particular ‘Bradley’ was recently captured from a pirate outfit by Rising Star of the Paper Tiger squad. The Jannah techs have since patched it up, cleaned the previous owner’s blood out of the cockpit, and approved it for Harrison’s use. He has christened it ‘Kyuzo’, after the master swordsman of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.

Appearance: The ‘Bradley’ is merely 19m in height, but due to the presence of its large backpack, which stores the secondary reactor, appears to be far bigger in size. It utilises an offensive shield, which is attached upon the forearm and can swivel around to block enemy attacks from different angles. The ‘Messer’ drone protrudes from its right shoulder, a rounded object with a gun pointing out from it. Unlike most machines produced in the Earth sphere, it lacks a signature mono-eye, with its cranial unit instead possessing a prominent, light blue visor that protects its sensors and cameras. Two miniature ‘horns’ also jut back from its head just above its Vulcans, smoothing back down in an almost 'punkish' look.

The previous owner had given this unit an orange paintjob, which Harrison has elected to keep. The techs have sprayed over the old pirate emblems and applied an OSDT insignia and serial number, but he has not yet had time to paint his own designs on.

Features:

• Long-range targeting sensors
• VI-EX02 Reactor System: each ‘Bradley’ unit possesses a secondary backup reactor that provides it with greater energy use, as well as allowing it to serve as a power source for the weapons of other HFVs if necessary, such as the GT-010's Mega Beam Cannon.
• Offensive Shield: swivel-mounted; beam-coated; contains two small missile launchers
• Rocket Anchor (2x): each arm of the C44 is equipped with a rocket anchor, which can be launched to grab onto foes or parts of the environment.
• VI-R01a Drone Control Transmitter: as a command unit, this ‘Bradley’ was equipped with a transmitter that allowed control over a single drone weapon.

Armaments:

• 60mm Vulcan Gun Pod (2x): mounted on cranial unit
• Repeating Beam Gun (1x): the ‘Bradley’ utilises a small repeating beam rifle as a standard weapon at short ranges to great effect, its high rate of fire making up for the reduced power in comparison to the more common beam rifle, and thanks to the presence of its secondary generator, is longer-lasting
• Beam Saber (6x): stored in recharge racks in its legs and in its backpack
• 3-Slot Grenade Rack
• VI-R01b ‘Messer’ Drone: this unit controls a single drone that, when not in use, is attached to its right shoulder, serving as an extra, fixed beam gun that feeds off its secondary generator; when launched however, it can be flown up to 500m away, and acts as a weak beam gun (due to reliance on internal batteries to fly) that can harry or hurt enemies. It can also be equipped with a camera or other surveillance tools.

Weaknesses: The C44 ‘Bradley’ is highly limited in regards to long-range combat, with its ‘Messer’ and its weak beam gun serving as its only source of attack beyond close proximities. While it can use its rocket anchors to reduce the distance between it and enemies, such tactics rely on being able to catch its target. It was also built entirely for space and colony-bound combat, and can barely function within atmosphere. The second reactor can be dangerous, with any damage dealt to it possessing far riskier effects upon the pilot and the machine compared to the main reactor. In addition, Harrison is not yet familiar with piloting this class of mech, so teething problems are quite possible.

Σωτήρ: the Solar Age (Mecha) - Still Accepting

Guess which loveable rogues shanghaied me into this. Fair warning to those who don't know me: I have never watched a mecha anime in my life.

James Harrison

Name: James Harrison

Age: 34

Gender: M

???: Y

Skills:
Harrison is a career soldier and an experienced HFV pilot, and is thus a practiced marksman, tactician and melee combatant both inside and outside a mech suit, showing high levels of dexterity and athleticism.

His technical know-how and adaptability have been beyond that of the average grunt since the beginning of his career, making him well-suited to more advanced and/or unconventional hardware. As a result, he has strong experience in the use of beam weaponry, demolitions, and drone warfare. His training in sword techniques transfers well to the use of Beam Sabers in close-range mech combat.

Appearance:
6 feet in height, athletic but not heavily built, caucasian skin tone. Black hair, length within military regulations, fringe pulled back baring forehead; sharp eyebrows; close-trimmed beard. Slate-grey eyes, chiselled features.

Speaks in a firm baritone with the Estuary accent of his native London.

Flight suit: Martian red, stencilled with personalised designs (PMC logo now replaced with OSDT insignia), light armour plates in key areas, utility belt.
On-duty apparel: OSDT fatigues, utility vest, hip-mounted sidearm holster, hobnail boots.
Off-duty apparel: slim jeans, t-shirt or turtleneck, jacket or gilet.

Personality:
Level-headed and professional, James is a man who takes his work seriously and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He is pragmatic and mission-focused, but not ruthless: he sticks to his own moral code. His sense of humour, when he shows it, is of the dry and sardonic variety the Brits are known for. His serious and critical attitude can make him difficult to get along with, but those who earn his respect will find him to be a strong ally and a dependable friend.

In his spare time he enjoys factual reading (mainly on the topics of science, technology and human history), classic film and literature, the sports of fencing and tennis, caffeinated beverages, and the odd video game.

History:
James Harrison was born in London, the son of a military man and a robotics engineer. With his father usually away on tours of duty, his mother gave up her career to raise the boy. Possessed of a sharp mind, the young James did well at school, particularly in the sciences thanks to his mother’s influence, while his father’s saw that he found success on the athletics track.

At 21, after graduating from university with a degree in Applied Physics (his dissertation project was on military beam technology), he followed in his father’s footsteps and enlisted in the British space fleet. His skills and specialist knowledge got him earmarked early on for the fleet’s HFV program, but he would not be assigned to it for another three years.

Harrison was 25 years old and one year into HFV training when the New Copenhagen rebellion began, and his unit was assigned to the UN coalition formed to combat the rogue colonist threat. He cut his mech combat teeth fighting Bradleys and other rebel HFVs out in the colonies.

Less than a year after the end of the war, he received the news that his father had been killed in action defending a UN convoy from a pirate raid. A few months later, his mother was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer, of a form difficult for even modern medicine to combat. Treatment would be expensive, and the military widow’s benefits would barely cover it. Finding that life in the fleet reminded him too strongly of the loss of his father, and wanting to take care of his mother as best he could, he left the British military and signed up with Marineris Security Solutions, a Mars-based private military firm. The generous salary would be more than enough to pay for private medical care for his mother, the work promised opportunities to fight pirates like those that killed his father, and shipping out to the Martian Sphere felt like a fresh start.

Thus began Harrison’s seven-year career as a military contractor (or as some less generous individuals might say, a mercenary). His contracts were many and varied, from escorting convoys to ‘mediating’ disputes between rival corporations; from attacking pirate strongholds head-on to guarding valuable or vulnerable facilities. And it was good work: the pay was good, the assignments were rewarding, and the company took good care of its troops, providing them with high-grade equipment and training.

In the latter years, however, Harrison began to have concerns about the ethics of certain of MSS’ clients and, by association, MSS itself. Some of the assignments his squad were dispatched to perform began to look legally questionable, particularly those that took them out into the asteroid belt to deal with increasingly unsavoury-looking groups. A series of damning news reports concerning other PMCs didn’t exactly alleviate his suspicions.

Six months ago, Harrison’s mother succumbed to her cancer and passed away. No longer needing a corporate salary, and feeling disillusioned with PMC work in general, he soon decided quit the company and return to the military fold. But with the growing stigma against contractors, former or otherwise, the British recruitment staff were leery, and he found himself shunted off to an old, semi-defunct UN taskforce: the OSDT.

He has since been assigned to the Jannah as a marine and reserve HFV pilot.

Mm C44 'Kyuzo'

Model: Mm C44 ‘Bradley’

Nickname: ‘Kyuzo’

Specialty: Mass Production General Purpose HFV

History: On the 3rd of July in the 105th year of the Solar Age, the autonomous O'Neill cluster of New Copenhagen declared total war upon its neighbours, with its leader, the eccentric Governor Werribee Bradley, announcing his intention to unite the colonies of the Earth Sphere into a single entity. Backed by an existing arms manufacturing industry and wealth gained from a strong relationship with asteroid miners, the colony was able to rapidly produce significant numbers of HFVs for its war effort, and within two months had already occupied three of its closest neighbouring colonies. Of its many HFVs, the most infamous was the Mm C44, a general purpose mech that soon grew to symbolise New Copenhagen's armies. The brainchild of the governor himself, exactly eight hundred and thirteen units were produced by the Vimana Institute, and were his vanguard against those that opposed him, the relatively high performance of the machines superior to much of what the colonial militias could deploy. However, it would be the intervention of an UN coalition in the fourth month of the war that ended their advance, with the Earth-built machines managing to be achieve technological parity, or even superiority, with the C44s. Six hundred and ninety-two of the ‘Bradley’s (a moniker given to them by coalition forces) would be destroyed, and by Christmas that year, the UN had successfully expelled New Copenhagen's forces from its occupied colonies, bringing an end to Bradley's ambitions (although he would escape arrest). The surviving C44s would find their way either into the hands of UN member states or amongst mercenaries and pirates, and are still a distinctive sight throughout the space routes.

This particular ‘Bradley’ was recently captured from a pirate outfit by Rising Star of the Paper Tiger squad. The Jannah techs have since patched it up, cleaned the previous owner’s blood out of the cockpit, and approved it for Harrison’s use. He has christened it ‘Kyuzo’, after the master swordsman of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.

Appearance: The ‘Bradley’ is merely 19m in height, but due to the presence of its large backpack, which stores the secondary reactor, appears to be far bigger in size. It utilises an offensive shield, which is attached upon the forearm and can swivel around to block enemy attacks from different angles. The ‘Messer’ drone protrudes from its right shoulder, a rounded object with a gun pointing out from it. Unlike most machines produced in the Earth sphere, it lacks a signature mono-eye, with its cranial unit instead possessing a prominent, light blue visor that protects its sensors and cameras. Two miniature ‘horns’ also jut back from its head just above its Vulcans, smoothing back down in an almost 'punkish' look.

The previous owner had given this unit an orange paintjob, which Harrison has elected to keep. The techs have sprayed over the old pirate emblems and applied an OSDT insignia and serial number, but he has not yet had time to paint his own designs on.

Features:

• Long-range targeting sensors
• VI-EX02 Reactor System: each ‘Bradley’ unit possesses a secondary backup reactor that provides it with greater energy use, as well as allowing it to serve as a power source for the weapons of other HFVs if necessary, such as the GT-010's Mega Beam Cannon.
• Offensive Shield: swivel-mounted; beam-coated; contains two small missile launchers
• Rocket Anchor (2x): each arm of the C44 is equipped with a rocket anchor, which can be launched to grab onto foes or parts of the environment.
• VI-R01a Drone Control Transmitter: as a command unit, this ‘Bradley’ was equipped with a transmitter that allowed control over a single drone weapon.

Armaments:

• 60mm Vulcan Gun Pod (2x): mounted on cranial unit
• Repeating Beam Gun (1x): the ‘Bradley’ utilises a small repeating beam rifle as a standard weapon at short ranges to great effect, its high rate of fire making up for the reduced power in comparison to the more common beam rifle, and thanks to the presence of its secondary generator, is longer-lasting
• Beam Saber (6x): stored in recharge racks in its legs and in its backpack
• 3-Slot Grenade Rack
• VI-R01b ‘Messer’ Drone: this unit controls a single drone that, when not in use, is attached to its right shoulder, serving as an extra, fixed beam gun that feeds off its secondary generator; when launched however, it can be flown up to 500m away, and acts as a weak beam gun (due to reliance on internal batteries to fly) that can harry or hurt enemies. It can also be equipped with a camera or other surveillance tools.

Weaknesses: The C44 ‘Bradley’ is highly limited in regards to long-range combat, with its ‘Messer’ and its weak beam gun serving as its only source of attack beyond close proximities. While it can use its rocket anchors to reduce the distance between it and enemies, such tactics rely on being able to catch its target. It was also built entirely for space and colony-bound combat, and can barely function within atmosphere. The second reactor can be dangerous, with any damage dealt to it possessing far riskier effects upon the pilot and the machine compared to the main reactor. In addition, Harrison is not yet familiar with piloting this class of mech, so teething problems are quite possible.

Mass Effect: Omega's Finest

Jek shook his head, partly in distaste for Thornton's execution of the prisoner, and partly in disdain for Zion's offer.

"Don't presume to know me, Mr Zion," he said. "I don't want back into the STG. Matter of fact, after Dalatrass Norlis was finally exposed, they asked me to come back: full reinstatement, promotion, pay rise, the whole package. I said 'no': that ship's sailed."

He gave the hologram a small sneer.

"Looks like your information isn't as good as you think it is."

Mass Effect: Omega's Finest

Nor me :P

Mass Effect: Omega's Finest

Jek manoeuvred himself to a position where both the hologram and the prisoner were within his field of view. It would be unwise to take his eyes off either of them. Discreetly, he activated a signal-tracer program on his omni-tool to see if the location of this mysterious employer could be tracked, but without much hope of success.

He could already see it was going to be one of those jobs.

The salarian was just as wary of the person in the hologram (who seemed to be about as obsessed with anonymity as you could get) as any of the others, but he didn't share Sienn's anger. In his experience, taking contracts from this kind of employer tended to be challenging and lucrative, provided that they kept their word. If they didn't keep their word...well, it would still at least be challenging. Jek enjoyed challenging jobs. The trick when dealing with these people was to never drop your guard and never take anything for granted.

And Jek didn't particularly hold this guy(?)'s decision to pit them against the Blackened Stars against him(?). It was perfectly natural for an employer to want to test potential employees before hiring them. Granted, it was a pretty extreme way to test them, but after all, this was Omega...

Mass Effect: Omega's Finest

Be careful what you say, or you'll start giving me ideas XD

Mass Effect: Omega's Finest

It was clear that his remark had got the asari riled, and the easy smile remained on the salarian's lipless mouth.

"Oh, I'm hurt."

Of course, Jek knew perfectly well that he really should've announced himself before entering Hergon's Dive.

In his STG days he would never have walked blithely into a recent battleground in the way he just had. But these were not his STG days, and now he enjoyed playing things a little close to the edge from time to time. In this case, the risk he had taken was a measured one. As far as he could tell, the small group fighting off the black-armoured thugs were the people he was expected to work with on this mystery job, so it would pay to know what made them tick.

He already had a feel for the personality of the quarian (who had still been on his rooftop), he knew Thornton by reputation (the human had been occupied with his captive), and vorcha were generally predictable (inarticulate shrieks of bloodlust from his general direction had suggested he was busy harrying the thugs' retreat). As for the second human, well, her character was still an unknown but he'd heard over the comm that she was a sniper, which meant she would check her targets carefully before firing.

That left the asari, who was still an unknown quantity. Bingo.

So Jek had made his somewhat unorthodox entrance, and the risk had paid off. No shots had been fired (at least, no literal ones) but Sienn's reaction was rather telling, suggesting a short fuse. That could be useful to know.

Besides, the salarian had never been in any real danger. He knew he could be in cover and have sabotaged her Mattock's heatsink before she had a chance to take half his shields down.

Leaving the asari to seethe (there was no need to provoke her further), Jek turned his attention to Thornton and his captive. He rolled his eyes as the human blustered about 'always getting the job done' and 'always tying up loose ends'. He sounded like the chest-beating protagonist of a third-rate action vid. But Jek did agree with Thornton's opinion of this new gang's oh-so-original choice of name: it seemed that gun-toting idiots had a fetish for calling themselves something star-related.

Ignoring Kronn's predictable outburst (if I had a credit for every time I hear a vorcha say 'die'...), he asked the prisoner a question of his own.

"I'm curious to hear how you knew we'd be here. Somehow I doubt it was luck."

Mass Effect: Omega's Finest

Given how intimate melding is supposed to be, I doubt she'd want to anyway. :P

Mass Effect: Omega's Finest

"My apologies," Jek replied in a level tone that didn't quite sound sincere, meeting Sienn's glare with a calmly raised eyebrow as he administered the Medi-Gel. "Would've thought it was immediately obvious I wasn't a hostile. Lowered weapon, non-threatening body language...ah, but it's easy to forget that not everyone thinks as quickly as a salarian does."

He smiled.

"No offence."